The present invention relates to the field of user interface improvements and, more particularly, to improving desktop icon management and grouping using desktop containers.
Today's computing devices support a wide range of functionality and usability. As such, users often utilize the desktop area of a computing device to place important or frequently used items. These items are typically represented by icons which allow users to interact with files, applications, and various other interactive computing elements. A leading problem among users is the organization/management of desktop icons and especially grouping. Users who employ the desktop heavily can often be accosted with a sea of icons arranged haphazardly on the desktop. The user is often forced to rearrange the icons manually, especially if the user requires a particular organization for one set of icons and another organization for another set of icons. For instance, a user wanting to organize files by modification date and applications by name must resort to manually sorting each set. Further, if the user applies a sort organization scheme to the desktop icons, the result is all the icons, regardless of type and/or attributes, are sorted by that scheme.
Additionally, there is no means for users to group sets of logically similar icons together. For instance, a user may want to group productivity applications separately from game applications. To do so, the user must manually group each icon on the desktop and actively maintain the icon groupings. For example, when a new productivity application is installed, the icon may be placed in the top left hand corner of the desktop. The user must move the newly installed application icon to the application group manually. This can be a tedious process for users who frequently add, copy, move, and delete icons from the desktop.
Problems with the current state of desktop icon management further arise among users who employ mobile computers where resizing the desktop/screen resolution occurs frequently. For instance, a user of a laptop computer may use the laptop at a home workstation with a specific desktop resolution and a different resolution at a workstation at work. Desktop resizing can often negatively impact icon organization causing icons to lose their position and their position relative to other icons. When resizing occurs, icons are rearranged randomly to fit the new screen resolution or are moved to new positions which can be difficult to locate. For instance, when changing from a high desktop resolution (e.g., 1600×1200) to a lower desktop resolution (e.g., 1024×768), icons which appear outside the screen resolution are moved to new locations which results in the icons losing their original organization scheme. The aforementioned problems with desktop icon management amounts to users being hesitant to employ the desktop as a high traffic area. This contradicts the purpose of the desktop area as the desktop is designed for high usage by the user. What is needed is an effective way to organize, manage, and group desktop icons.